‘Nervous’ Over Ferraro Challenge : Bradley’s Public Ebullience Belies Private Concerns

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, in North Hollywood, had just been tugged by a supporter into a hotel conference room to speak before a group of tax accountants. A large group, aware. Likely voters.

He had not been scheduled to talk to the group, but “a politician is not likely to pass up such an opportunity, especially during an election,” he said, smiling broadly as he took the podium.

After a rocky start two weeks ago, when Bradley was put on the defensive and responded snappishly to nearly every charge made by his reelection bid opponent, Councilman John Ferraro, the mayor last week returned to his more typical style of trying to stay above the fray.

Campaign Officials Nervous

But the public ebullience contrasts with some private concerns about Ferraro’s challenge. Campaign officials say they are “nervous” about a potentially divisive and negative campaign that could be waged by Ferraro’s campaign manager, Ron Smith, who has a reputation for no-holds-barred strategy.

Ferraro has assured Bradley that he will run a “clean and fair” campaign. Nevertheless, Bradley’s political instinct is to stump, and stump hard.

During a typical day of mayoral duties and campaigning last week, Bradley passed up no opportunity to talk to nearly every type of constituent group in the city, ranging from the accountants, to travel agents, government middle managers, charity workers in the San Fernando Valley, minority bankers, to Westside homeowners.

The message was upbeat, positive, evoking memories of the Olympics, of a booming downtown, of a harmonious city. There was little mention of Ferraro, except in a humorous vein during a speech to municipal managers.

Referring to one of the city cars he now uses, one that used to be driven by Ferraro, Bradley said the car reeked of cigar smoke when he first got it.

“Now I like John, but John smokes the stinkiest cigars you’ve ever smelled!” he said, to chuckles in the audience. Having already told a good yarn about the car falling into a pothole before he got it filled, he went on about the cigar. “We tried everything we could. We just couldn’t get that odor out of the car. That odor just surrounded you, you felt like it was--in your pores.” Finally, a deodorizing perfume did the trick, he said.

That was Bradley the campaigner, relaxed and on a roll.

Tom Quinn, his campaign chairman, insisted in an interview late last week that he is not even certain Ferraro “is a viable challenger. He may fade more rapidly than Ed Muskie,” Quinn said, referring to the short-lived 1972 presidential hopes of former Democratic Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine. Other well-known candidates for mayor, including state Treasurer Jesse Unruh and former Mayor Sam Yorty, have been unable to beat Bradley since 1973, Quinn added.

Privately Irritated

But Bradley, in private conversations and interviews, speaks of Ferraro’s challenge in tones of indignation and irritation.

“Ferraro’s never led any big charge to get more police,” Bradley said after his speech to the accountants. Then, referring to Ferraro’s call to build a trolley-like system along freeways, the mayor added: “And that so-called rapid transit system he’s proposing is absurd, tearing up the freeway. Any expert will tell you that. Frankly, I’m perplexed. I don’t know how reporters let him get away with that.”

Bradley, seated in the tan Oldsmobile that Ferraro used to drive, was en route to City Hall when he passed by the latest in a series of Ferraro press conferences called to criticize Bradley for his handling of the Police Department. This press conference was held in front of the department’s Parker Center headquarters. “Hmpf, is he too cheap to rent the Press Club?” the mayor grumbled.

Bradley campaign officials are being noticeably tight-lipped about even the most general aspects of their campaign plans. While Ferraro’s fund raiser says she hopes to raise $1.5 million, Bradley officials will say only that they will raise as much as needed.

Two Fund-Raising Dinners

The mayor’s campaign fund raiser, Irene Tritschler, said two dinners are set, one with Asian community supporters Jan. 29. A Western-style affair in the San Fernando Valley Feb. 27 will showcase liberal as well as conservative support for the mayor, she said, with co-chairs that include Jane Boeckmann, wife of Herbert Boeckmann, the most conservative police commissioner that Bradley has appointed, and Robert D. Selleck, former president of the Recreation and Parks Commission, one of about 120 commissioners Bradley replaced last year.

As for combating charges that Ferraro has raised, in particular that the mayor has failed to maintain Police Department strength at an adequate level, Quinn said the mayor will defuse that simply by citing his record on issues.

“Tom Bradley is a known quantity,” said Quinn, the media-hip chairman who Bradley insiders say is the real force behind the reelection effort. “He will be campaigning, people will be seeing more of him, talking about issues.”

And although the election is not until April 9, that has begun already. During his stops last Thursday, be they stock speeches or ribbon cuttings, Bradley put to work his belief that “people want to hear something positive, they don’t want to hear all this carping all the time.”

Appeals to Positive Self-Image

With each group he saw that day he stressed matters that appealed to a positive self-image. When he was with travel agents he stressed the Olympics; with accountants, the need for an additional tax to finance more police officers; with municipal managers, the benefits of public service; with United Way workers, he stressed a job well done. With minority bankers, he struck a chord when he spoke of how far they had progressed since his youth.

He had been the first black to win a scholarship and leadership award at his high school, Bradley said, and with the award was supposed to come an offer of a job at the local bank. He waited and hoped, Bradley said, but “let me tell you, no call came to Tom Bradley. . . . Now I’m going to look with pride to see all these black faces doing what so many of us dreamed about.”

But he struck out with one group of Westside homeowners impatient with his lack of familiarity with their Westwood community plan and still unhappy about his approval last weekend of oil drilling in Pacific Palisades.

“Your honor, you come before us to solicit our support, and we solicit your help,” said one insistent homeowner. “I want to hear your commitment that you represent the people’s wishes.”

Bradley told the man he would do his best but would give him no guarantees about his stand until he had studied the Westwood proposal. When dissatisfaction seemed to swell in the room, Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky took the stage in Bradley’s defense.

“I did not agree with him on oil drilling . . . but even Ty Cobb only batted .400 and he’s in the Hall of Fame. So give the guy a break.”

Anger Over Drilling Approval

Quinn will not concede that the oil drilling approval hurt Bradley support on the Westside. On the other hand, Michael Gage, campaign manager, said: “My gut tells me that if it cuts any way at this moment, in the short term, there is a fair amount of anger and hostility.”

Ferraro, as a consistent supporter of oil drilling, is not in a good position to make hay of that issue. But Bradley’s surprise support of the project may have turned off some people who could have been expected to turn out for the mayor had he vetoed the project.

Ferraro, although, like Bradley, a Democrat, is trying to appeal to more conservative and often Republican voters. To combat this, Quinn, Gage and consultant David Townsend will be putting together a carefully targeted get-out-the-vote program. They will be examining the city’s voting patterns “precinct by precinct, sometimes block by block.” Gage said.

Townsend said they will look at groups of voters, by location, party affiliation, sex and other factors. Then they will compare how certain groups cast their ballot in the 1984 presidential election to see if those same people voted in the 1981 municipal races.

“So if we see a situation where you have people who tended to vote for Walter Mondale and they did not vote in the last municipal election, these people are potential Tom Bradley supporters. These are the type of areas where we’ll concentrate a get-out-the-vote effort,” Quinn said.

1981 Voting Patterns

By that definition, inroads could be made in the Eastside’s 14th Council District and the Watts-to-the-harbor 15th District. In the 14th, voters in 1981 gave Bradley 53% of their votes, but only 32% of all those registered bothered to cast ballots. Yet in November, 60% voted, and the majority went with Mondale. The 15th District, including San Pedro, Wilmington and Watts, yielded similar statistics.

In addition, the Bradley campaign can be expected to put its most intense get-out-the-vote effort in its traditional strongholds of South-Central, Southwest and West Los Angeles, where Bradley last time scored support ranging from 69% in the Westside’s 5th District to 92% in the South-Central 8th District. These voters were also among Mondale’s most loyal supporters in the city.

Gage promises a “vigorous, citywide effort,” with campaign headquarters in the Westside, Watts, Eastside, Crenshaw, the San Fernando Valley and the Harbor areas.